Yesterday Joe Brought me home a Red Rose. This is Day Two of my Art Challenge. Thank you Joe and thank you to Yukiko Launois and Tom Sobolik for the inspiration I received from your show “Silent Season.”

Joe and I Recently went to Show at Martin Stankiewicz Gallery in Tarrytown, New York featuring the work of artists Yukiko Launois and Tom Sobolik The show was called Silent Season. Yukiko was our former editor at Corbis, & The Stock Market who we love dearly. She was a great editor and really knew her stuff. She was also a pleasure to work with and would always help & encourage you to produce your best work. She also was editor of Black Star Photo Agency. It was a fine show and we enjoyed it immensely.

This exhibit is the result of artistic larceny. The exhibit also grew out of the 34-year photography friendship between Yukiko Launois and me. We met in1980 when Yukiko was head of the photo library at the Black

Star photo agency and I, a fledgling photojournalist, went to work for her. After a career as a photo editor for Black Star and Corbis, Yukiko became a photographer herself in retirement. My career was a photojournalist and a corporate photographer through Black Star. About 10 years ago I began switching my emphasis to landscape photography.

I was inspired to winter scenes by Yukiko occasionally sent of snow in Central Park. Photographing purely for her own enjoyment, she would “publish” them by home-making greeting cards and sending them to friends. I loved the photos and was drawn to the harmony, simplicity and grace in them juxtaposed to the stark contrasts and harshness of winter.

Without knowing the Picasso quote, “Bad artists copy. Good artists steal”, I began unconsciously pilfering the sensibilities I drew from my friends photos. After seeing the early results I became much more aware of Yukiko’s influence on my winter work and I began unabashedly helping myself to all I could of her vision. This show is some of the evidence of that thievery. It is a collaboration because Yukiko is complicit in my embezzlement.

Artist’s statement: Yukiko Launois

I am first and foremost a photography editor. That was my career and I never took a photograph myself until after my retirement 10 years ago. Then I began editing the real world and putting my choice on film. I am an observer of nature and I try to choose the purest beauty in it.

My idea of beauty is influenced by my upbringing in Japan. As a girl I learned classical Japanese arts including calligraphy and flower arranging. I rebelled against the classics and fell in love and married a French/American photojournalist, moving to New York. But Japanese aesthetics remained in my DNA.

Taking photographs is my pleasure. I do it for my own enjoyment and could never have seen myself as one of the many world-renowned photojournalists whose work I edited for Black Star and Corbis. Pressure and deadlines are not for me.

Even so, when I am happy with a photograph I like to share it. So I make note cards with my favorite images and send them to friends.

I was flattered when Tom asked me to do a joint show. I was blown away when I saw some of his snow pictures. His less-is-more kind of approach looked very Japanese to me. I didn’t know I inspired him to do the work but my old editing instincts told me our photos would look good together.